Custer Fair

Specialties

Visitors to Piccolo Theatre’s Custer Fair are happy to be there. Smiles greet you wherever you go. Located just north of Chicago along the Lake Michigan shoreline Evanston represents, «Elevated Living.» Great demographics, stately mansions and a highly educated and friendly population all make for one of our nation’s great urban-​living environments. From the historic Main St. and Chicago Ave. store buildings to the tree lined Washington Street residential and park area you can find artisans and attractions to please. 250 Artists and craftspeople from across the nation come together on the third weekend of June every year to exhibit and sell paintings, ceramics, pottery, photography, jewelry, graphic arts, wearable art, country and home craft, antiques and collectables. They are joined by 150 local businesses and commercial exhibitors who put on an old fashioned Sidewalk Sale on the commercial streets. Over 30 food vendors offer an international menu featuring the old favorites as well

History

Established in 1972.

The fair began in 1972 on historic Custer Avenue. Each year since then artists, craftspeople, antique dealers, restauranteurs, entertainers and the business community get together with 70,000 attendees for this award-​winning Northshore tradition.

The Custer Fair is a function of Piccolo Theatre, Inc., a not-​for-​profit corporation. In addition to producing Custer Fair it also has restored the Main St. Metra train station. In addition to providing excellent commuter services the station function as a cultural center called the Piccolo Arts Depot, home of the professional ensemble-​based theatre company the Piccolo Theatre Ensemble.

Meet the Business Owner

John S.

Business Owner

John’s professional theatre career began in 1966 when, at the age of nineteen, he left university and went to work for Bob Sickinger at Hull House’s Jane Addams Center. After developing its successful Teen Theatre Program, he returned to school to finish his degree at Valparaiso University’s Christ College.

The origins of Piccolo Theatre’s unique brand of comedy are found in John’s early theatre work. Beginning in 1969, in Coventry, England, John began performing in Public Houses and art colleges.

John’s love for commedia dell’Arte was born while performing in Geoffrey Buckley’s Commedia dell’Arte Gelosi Troupe in Stratford-​upon-​Avon. Buckley has long been known as a master of movement and mask theatre.

John began to envision a theatre that embodied the vitality and spirit of the commedia dell’Arte; one of comic prototypes, masks and physical discipline. By 1970, John returned to Chicago, bringing along his collaborator Ken Raabe.